IAPE Evidence Blog

Gray Tele­vi­sion, Inc., kxii.com
BYLINE: Josh Steven­son, josh.stevenson@kxii.com
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Grayson County, TX

SHERMAN, TX — A for­mer Grayson County Sheriff’s deputy is under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, accused of tak­ing guns from the department.

SHERMAN, TX — A for­mer Grayson County Sheriff’s deputy is under crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, accused of tak­ing guns from the department.

Sher­iff J. Keith Gary said at a press con­fer­ence Mon­day that the deputy has been fired, and he expects crim­i­nal charges to be filed. The man’s name has not been released. Gary declined to answer any ques­tions, pend­ing fur­ther investigation.

In a press release the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office said a num­ber of guns were miss­ing from the prop­erty room although many have already been recovered.

Sher­iff Gary says he believes the employee acted alone.

“The action of one employee does not rep­re­sent the stan­dards I have set from this office. This was this is a one time inci­dent involv­ing one employee, and I took imme­di­ate action on it,” said Sher­iff Gary.

The Texas Rangers have been called in to inves­ti­gate. Sher­iff Gary says deputies are con­duct­ing an inven­tory of the prop­erty room.

Gary released the fol­low­ing state­ment to reporters:

“On Decem­ber 2, 2011 the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office began an inter­nal inves­ti­ga­tion on an employee for misconduct.

Through that inves­ti­ga­tion I learned that the employee was involves in crim­i­nal activity.

I imme­di­ately requested that the Texas Rangers con­duct a crim­i­nal investigation.

Texas Ranger Brad Oliver inter­viewed the employee and received enough infor­ma­tion to sub­stan­ti­ate the crim­i­nal complaint.

The employee has been ter­mi­nated and the inves­ti­ga­tion in ongoing.

The actions of one employee does not rep­re­sent the stan­dards I have set for this office. This is a one­time inci­dent involv­ing one employee I took imme­di­ate action on. I ask the pub­lic to con­tinue to trust and have faith in the employ­ees of the Sheriff’s Office. We will con­tinue to serve and pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Grayson County as we have in the past.”

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Daily News, galvestondailynews.com
BYLINE: Christo­pher Smith Gon­za­lez, The Daily News
Link to Article

La Mar­que, TX

LA MARQUE — Drugs, money and pos­si­bly firearms all went miss­ing from the School Dis­trict Police Department’s evi­dence room at some point dur­ing the admin­is­tra­tion of the pre­vi­ous police chief, Tim­o­thy Fields, the cur­rent police chief for the school dis­trict, said.

Fields said he learned of the miss­ing items when he con­ducted an audit soon after he was appointed chief in July 2010. Fields would not go into specifics about the weapons reported missing.

Fields said he noti­fied the Texas Rangers, which often inves­ti­gates other law-enforcement agen­cies, about the miss­ing evi­dence when he first did the audit. Since then, he also has found an offense report writ­ten by a for­mer school dis­trict offi­cer on June 29, 2009 that states evi­dence had gone miss­ing, Fields said.

He also has found an April 2009 email between for­mer police Chief Rus­sell Wash­ing­ton and the school district’s human resources direc­tor dis­cussing miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

Wash­ing­ton could not be reached for comment.

Fields was appointed police chief after Wash­ing­ton was fired in 2010. At the time, Wash­ing­ton was under indict­ment in an alleged attempt to fal­sify doc­u­ments to obtain a title to a vehicle.

The charges were dropped, and Wash­ing­ton has demanded his old job back, along with compensation.

An inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing evi­dence was under way, and no sus­pects had been iden­ti­fied, Fields said.

“This is not some­thing that was done on a whim,” Fields said of the inves­ti­ga­tion. “The only thing I’m doing is try­ing to pro­tect the integrity of the department.”

Some­one needs to be held account­able for the miss­ing evi­dence, Fields said.

He said one of the rea­sons he was adamant about fol­low­ing through with the inves­ti­ga­tion was he didn’t want to be left respon­si­ble for some­thing that did not hap­pen under his watch.

“I don’t want it to blow up in my face,” Fields said.

The miss­ing evi­dence was kept in a locked file cab­i­net in a room at the high school, Fields said. Only the school district’s police offi­cers had access to it, he said. Fields said he now is the only offi­cer who has access to that room.

He said he has asked for assis­tance from the dis­trict attorney’s office and the fed­eral Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explo­sives. He said Texas Rangers have come by the depart­ment and that he was work­ing with them to file the paper­work the Rangers need.

Ecomet Bur­ley, super­in­ten­dent for the La Mar­que school dis­trict, said he had been made aware of the miss­ing items by Fields.

“It is an ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion by the chief of police into the miss­ing items and the incon­sis­ten­cies in the report that was filed,” Bur­ley said.

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

Impe­r­ial Val­ley Press, ivpressonline.com
BYLINE: SILVIO J. PANTA Staff Writer
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West­mor­land, CA

Two for­mer West­mor­land Police Depart­ment offi­cers who were arrested in rela­tion to the theft of fire­fight­ing equip­ment and weapons received jail terms Friday.

Juan Jesus Chavez, 26, and Alfredo Tovar, 29, each received the term of two years in state prison that Impe­r­ial County Supe­rior Court Judge Ray­mundo Cota sus­pended under the terms of an indi­cated sen­tence that instead placed both defen­dants on three years’ probation.

Chavez, a for­mer full-time police offi­cer who worked for the WPD for 18 months before his res­ig­na­tion in Feb­ru­ary, also received a year in county jail with credit for 78 days served.

Tovar, who worked as a WPD reserve offi­cer, got a jail term of 180 days with credit for one day served. Chavez received the larger sen­tence because he was sus­pected of hav­ing a larger role in the thefts, pros­e­cu­tor Jef­frey Brooker said.

Chavez resigned from the WPD three days after his arrest in Feb­ru­ary. It’s sus­pected the prop­erty was taken dur­ing a six-month period last year.

The judge opted to sen­tence the defen­dants based on the aggra­vated nature of the offenses, Brooker said.

Nei­ther defen­dant had any crim­i­nal record but “on the other hand” had abused their posi­tions of trust, Brooker said.

Chavez pleaded guilty to three sep­a­rate charges of grand theft and Tovar pleaded guilty to one felony charge of bur­glary. Both defen­dants entered their pleas Sept. 16, which was the day Chavez sur­ren­dered him­self to authorities.

Tovar chose to wait until sen­tenc­ing Fri­day before turn­ing him­self in, Brooker said.

Other equip­ment taken was a pro­tec­tive police vest, Taser car­tridges and weapons that included a .22 cal­iber rifle and a .40 cal­iber Glock semi-automatic pis­tol, accord­ing to a pro­ba­tion report.

The report also detailed the theft of a cell phone from a cit­i­zen Chavez had arrested and fire­works taken from an evi­dence locker.

Most of the prop­erty was recov­ered but some of it, like the breath­ing appa­ra­tus fire­fight­ers use, had been sold on eBay, Brooker said.

The West­mor­land Fire Depart­ment took a loss of about $28,000 as the four pieces of breath­ing equip­ment were val­ued at $7,000 each, Brooker said.

Staff Writer Sil­vio J. Panta can be reached at 760 – 337-3442 or at spanta@ivpressonline.com

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org